I’m in Cameroon!

I got in a little over a week ago and we spent the first few days in the capital, Yaounde. There really isn’t much to say about Yaounde because we were pretty much under house arrest at the hotel: they even had paramilitary men guarding it 24-7 which was pretty intense and unnecessary, but it is clear that peace corps takes our safety seriously.

While on lock down at the hotel I started to get to know the other volunteers in my training class. There are 43 of us and we are all either education or Small Enterprise Developlment (SED) volunteers. Peace Corps really enjoys its acronyms. And we had a good time with our two current volunteers who were in charge of our orientation: I’m pretty pleased with my training class. Everyone is super competent and interesting and the group has a really great sense of humor. (There is even a Mary Emerson doppleganger! so you know things are good)

After being trapped in a hotel in Yaounde we were finally bussed to Bafia where we have our training: Bafia is absolutely beautiful!! It is known throughout Cameroon as having the sweetest pineapple; I have
seriously eaten so much pineapple it is ridiculous. The food here is generally delicious though there are some things that don’t quite strike my fancy. The volunteers in country warned us that people tend to gain 10-20 pounds while volunteering here which is insane if you think about it. On a normal day I eat les begnege (doughnuts) for breakfast.

Yesterday I got to go down to the corner store (and when i say corner store i mean two posts of wood near a cooking pot) where they fry the dougnuts, and my family usually serves me a cup of bouielle (i am
making up the spellings on a lot of these things). Bouielle, as best as i understand, is hot corn water and condensed milk. It is absolutely delicious. Then lunch is rice and fish and maybe some vegetables and
dinner has been different every night. I’ve learned that I do not like les prunes (which are not in fact prunes but gross little rocks that grow on trees that you have to boil) and that fish heads are fine to eat when the electricity is out but that it kind of grosses me out to eat when I can see it. I’m a little worried that I am already tired of fish because it is such a staple food here. I like le manioc which is kind of like a potato with the consistency of a gummy bear, and for dessert every night we eat pineapple and papaya and sometimes avocado which is as big as your head.

My host family is absolutely amazing!! i have my own room and things are pretty nice (my bed had fleas when i moved in but things have been cool since then). There is also a spider named Harold who lives in the hole near my ceiling but we have come to the agreement that he eats all of the bugs and doesn’t touch my stuff and i let him live. There was a frog in my room this morning, and after I gracefully freaked out and looked up the word frog in my dictionary my host sister came to my rescue. But, back to my family, my oldest host sister is named Yolande and she is super nice and chic, she took me to the big market on Thursday and wore two inch heels on the dirt road: that girl is impressive. She is a little older than me and has a son who lives with us. Then there is Armel who is 20 and he is on summer vacation from college. Armel is pretty cool and he speaks english which has been useful (in Cameroon you have to speak english to go to college; so he is pretty thankful for the peace corps volunteer that started to teach at his school in elementary. My family understands the concept of the peace corps which has been nice) He’s looking for some american to marry so he can have US citizenship, so if you are interested I will let him know. Seriously though, my family is cool. Then there is Viviene who is the granddaughter of my host mother. She is seventeen and is just chilling in bafia over summer vacation. She and her brother, Junior, live in Yaounde during the year. Junior is 10. They are both pretty westernized and they know Lady Gaga and Beyonce and will break into Michael Jackson songs at any given moment. I have a younger host sister named Gabrielle who is a nine years old through and through. She likes me a lot and laughs like a hyena, Gabi is pretty cool. The baby of the family is Ryan who is two and absolutely adorable, seriously, he sings and dances all of the time and he loves my flash light. Then my mom is awesome, she is a teacher and has been so helpful in teaching me french (I was doing my homework in the living room yesterday and she rolls out a chalk board and starts giving me a lesson, she is super nice). Cousin Oliver hangs out around the house a lot but he doesn’t actually live here.

I really love my family and we’ve had some good times: I was asking for help boiling some water and when it came time to light the stove I told my mom I was afraid of matches which made her laugh hysterically.
Then she made me go through and light an entire box of matches, laughing at me every time I frantically shook out the flame. Now every time I ask the name of something my family likes to ask if I am afraid of it. It’s all in good fun.

I haven’t gotten sick yet, every volunteer and peace corps trainer is assuring me that it is coming but so far i have been fine. A few mosquito bites and a lot of language mess ups but that is it.

My family is Catholic and I told them that my family is also Catholic. I went to mass today and i was surprised that the Catholic church could even make Cameroonian music somber. I do have a pretty rad Jesus poster hanging over my bed which i find endlessly amusing. Training is going well it’s mostly a lot of language classes. I’m not competent yet but i feel like my ability to speak english has disappeared so i guess that is a start, so now i can barely mumble in two languages. There are three volunteers in my class and my language teacher is named Ayisha: She’s pretty cool. She’s from northern Cameroon. Every two weeks we switch so we can hear new accents.

Alright, my time is almost up so I need to wrap this up. The cafe has a line waiting so I can’t buy more time. It’s not too expensive to use the internet, so i should be updating once a week while i am in bafia for training. The money here is strange, an hour on the internet is 300 CFA, a beer is like 500 CFA (we have not gone out much because we have a 7 pm curfew unless we are with a Peace Corps official which kind of sucks), peace corps tends to pay us in 5000 CFA and 10 000 CFA bills which is a hilarious joke because we can’t use them because no one has change. I’ve spent very little money since coming here, and even in US standards, peace corps is paying me well. I guess that is all for now.

I am happy and comfortable and learning a lot and i miss you all greatly!!
love, Emily